'Land art' makes California a selfie center

[Photo/Agencies]

Mirage, which is shaped like an ordinary ranch-style suburban house, symbolizes the cult of real estate, a central tenet of the American Dream. It is also a nod to the "mid-century modern" architectural masterpieces of Palm Springs.

"I'm interested in seeing artwork as something that can be alive on its own and continuously in flux," says Aitken, a top contemporary American artist.

The location of Mirage, which reflects the surrounding sky and landscape, was "very important".

"I wanted to have a perspective as looking from a desert hillside toward the suburbs and that vista extending past the suburbs and reclaimed by the raw desert continuing on undeveloped into the horizon," he says.

The organizers of Desert X give only the latitude and longitude coordinates of the works and not their addresses, forcing visitors to search for them and discover little-known places along the way, like the Whitewater Preserve where art-seekers can find "One I Call."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE